Elluminate, Intranets.com Heat Up Web-Conferencing Market

Elluminate, Intranets.com Heat Up Web-Conferencing Market: "Both companies are taking on Web conferencing leaders such as WebEx Communications Inc. and Microsoft Corp., which had acquired PlaceWare Inc. last year.
Elluminate, of Pompano Beach, Fla., renamed its Web conferencing software, formerly known as vClass, to Elluminate Live. The company comes to Web conferencing with an e-learning focus and strong academic customer base, but with the Version 5 release Elluminate is targeting corporate business by offering to buy out customers' contracts from competing Web conferencing offerings.
...
To grab customers from competitors, Elluminate is offering to provide free access for existing customers of competitors up to the length of time remaining in a contract, or a maximum of eight months, Arora said.
...
In its separate announcement, Intranets.com launched Intranets.com Conferencing. It allows users to add Web conferencing and telephone-based audio conferencing to through their hosted Intranets.com collaboration site so online meetings can be initiated on-demand, said Woburn, Mass.-based Intranets.com.

The conferencing option is provided through partner Netspoke, a conferencing provider based in Woburn, Mass. It includes the sharing of presentations, files and applications as well as features for chat, question-and-answer sessions, polling and white boarding.
"

SAD: one should be careful of aggressive competitive pricing plays with MS squarely in the game...